One of two men convicted of murdering agricultural consultant John Cropper and two of his relatives during a home invasion over two decades ago, has sued the State over being forced to remain on Death Row for over 10 years.
Lawyers representing Daniel Agard filed his constitutional motion against the Office of the Attorney General on Monday.
Cropper, his mother-in-law Maggie Lee, 68, and sister-in-law Lynette Lithgow-Pearson, 57, were killed at Cropper’s Mt Anne Drive, Second Avenue, Cascade home between December 11 and 12, 2001.
Their bodies were found by Cropper’s housekeeper the following day. They were all bound and gagged with electrical wire and their throats had been slit. Lithgow-Pearson, a former television broadcaster with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and her mother were found in the same room, while Cropper was found in the bathtub. Maggie Lee was Agard’s great-grandmother.
Cropper’s wife Angela, a former Independent senator and deputy director of the United Nations Environmental Programme, was not at home at the time of the murders. In November 2012, she died in London, England, after a protracted illness.
In 2004, Agard and Lester Pittman were convicted of the three murders.
The Court of Appeal eventually quashed Agard’s conviction and ordered a retrial but upheld Pittman’s conviction.
Pittman then appealed to the Privy Council, with the British Law Lords remitting the case to the Appeal Court for them to consider whether his conviction was safe, considering new evidence over his mental state.
The Appeal Court eventually upheld Pittman’s conviction but sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum sentence of 40 years based on the fact that the five-year period for executing the mandatory death penalty for murder, prescribed in the famous case of Pratt and Morgan, had elapsed.
Agard faced a retrial in 2013 and was convicted. His conviction was eventually upheld by the Court of Appeal, with Agard opting not to mount a final appeal before the Privy Council.
In the lawsuit, Agard’s lawyers are claiming that although he was removed from the condemned cells at the Port-of-Spain State Prison after he appealed his first conviction, he remained there after being returned following his conviction on retrial.
“The State lost the right to seek to carry out the lawful sentence imposed at the criminal trial of the Claimant upon the expiration of the presumptive period in Pratt,” they said.
“A State that wishes to retain capital punishment must accept the responsibility of ensuring that execution follows as swiftly as practicable after sentence, allowing a reasonable time for appeal and consideration of reprieve,” they said, as they noted that he was not responsible for delays in his appeal.
They claimed that while Agard effectively benefited from the Pratt and Morgan precedent, he was not officially re-sentenced after five years had elapsed since his conviction in 2013, as was done with Pittman.
“As a State which takes its international obligations seriously and the fundamental rights of our citizens equally seriously, it is incumbent on this court, when called upon, to commute a sentence to impose a sentence that is in accordance with the common law principles or aims of punishment,” they said, as they claimed that his constitutional rights were infringed.
Through the lawsuit, Agard is seeking a series of declarations over the handling of his case. He is also seeking an injunction ordering his release from Death Row until he is eventually re-sentenced. He is also seeking an order quashing the death sentence still ascribed to him.
Agard is being represented by Gerald Ramdeen, Wayne Sturge, Alexia Romero and Dayadai Harripaul.
The case is scheduled to come up for hearing before High Court Judge Joan Charles today, when she is expected to consider the interim relief being sought by Agard.